


Windows, Coffee, and Other Embarrassing Things

by orphan_account



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M, Fluff, Mild Language, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3428207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke has had a rough morning, all right? She didn’t need some guy from the coffee shop to go about and make it even worse. Well, it turns out he might have actually made it better. Or, that coffee shop AU in which Clarke embarrasses herself and Bellamy can’t help but enjoy it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Windows, Coffee, and Other Embarrassing Things

A warm February day had graced Virginia’s typically brisk town of Alexandria, and the sun beat down on Clarke Griffin’s back as she traipsed down the street. Her feet dragged across the cobblestone path, her hair frizzed in its braid, and her washed out t-shirt dripped with colors in stark contrast to the faded Harvard insignia emblazoned across her chest. She sighed, pausing in the street to rub at her pounding head. Clarke didn’t care what anyone had to say: running an art studio was _fucking difficult_.

Well, dropping out of medical school to pursue her dream had been no cakewalk either. With an angry mother on her tail and an empty bank account ahead of her, Clarke had fled to Virginia for a reprieve from the life assigned to her by birth. But her artist dreams proved to be more of a constant cycle of colorful laundry and sleepless nights than anything else.

Yesterday’s all-nighter had been one in a long line of many in which Clarke slaved over a canvas, throwing down colors and smearing them into the patterns that danced beneath her eyelids, hoping to catch the image before it faded from her mind. It happened, sometimes. Even in the delightfully wooded area of Alexandria, Clarke dreamed of forests so deep and tall that she knew places like that only existed in her imagination, and she worked tirelessly to preserve them before they slipped from her memory completely.

And… she was thinking about work again. _God, I need a fucking break_ , she groaned, pausing in the middle of the scuffed-up sidewalk to rub at her eyes. Dropping her hands to her sides, Clarke let her gaze slide over the shops to her left. Up ahead, a small wooden sign in the shape of a mug hung from an awning, catching her attention as it swung slightly back and forth.

 _Grounded,_ Her eyes read.

 _Coffee_ , her heart sang.

Ordinarily, Clarke would be rushing to her tiny apartment in order to change before heading out to the clinic she worked at (what? You thought she wasn’t going to put all those years in med school to use?). But she typically had Saturdays off, and she needed a pick-me-up. Badly.

Without another thought Clarke sped up, heading straight for the quaint glass door underneath the sign. As she made her way there, her eyes swung to the giant window of the shop to get a look at the interior, and she came to an abrupt halt.

Staring back at her on the windowpane was her own reflection, dirty and tired and covered in paint. She frowned in disgust, leaning forward and furrowing her eyebrows.

Window-Clarke did the same; scowling as if to say, “Get your shit together!”

In a moment of fatigue-induced childishness, Clarke stuck her tongue out at her mirror image and rocked back on her heels.

“Aren’t I cute,” she grumbled to herself. Her eyes traced the tracks of color that ran down her face, and Clarke scrubbed furiously at the swipe of paint on her cheek. When she’d rubbed her skin raw, Clarke pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, relishing in the way the world blurred around her, and then dropped them to the ground once again. As her vision cleared, Clarke looked up, searching for her own blue eyes in the window.

Instead, she met a pair of perplexed brown ones.

She stared at those eyes in confusion for several seconds, and then her stomach dropped.

There was a man on the other side of the window.

There was a man on the other side of the window, and he had seen her stare off into the café and throw a fit over the paint on her cheek. In fact, she had been making faces _right at him_ through it all.

 _Oh god_. Clarke stiffened, scrambling away from the window and into a throng of tourists. Why did the world decide to throw these embarrassing situations her way on days that she really could not fucking handle them? _I can’t walk in there now,_ she panicked. _Where will I get my coffee? I’ll have to—_

A rough shoulder body-checked her, and she was thrown off to the side with only a “hey, watch it,” from her assailant before he disappeared into the crowd.

Bewildered, Clarke looked back at the coffee shop only to match eyes with the man on the other side of the window once again.

He was _laughing_ at her.

His shoulders were shaking, and his lips were twisted in an arrogant smirk, and Clarke was suddenly super pissed.

 _How dare he_ , she fumed, glaring at that stupid, mocking face through the window. _This day already sucks. I just want some damn coffee, and no judgmental asshole is going to stop me. I won’t let him._ With that declaration, Clarke straightened her shoulders, tossed her nose towards the air in a fine imitation of her mother, and marched into Grounded Café.

Clarke made a beeline for the line at the back of the coffee shop, securing a spot next to the counter before taking a chance to look at her surroundings. The ambiance of the café was not what she had expected. Instead of the dim lighting and the cozy, baked yellows of a typical coffee shop, this one had a more nature-oriented theme to it. Plants hung from just about everywhere; tall shrubs climbed the walls, flowers with thin purple leaves drooped from the ceiling, and each dark, circular table held a small succulent on top of it. The lighting was low, and the walls were a deep, rich brown. Clarke felt like she was in one of her paintings. She loved it.

The cashier interrupted her assessment of the place. “What can I get for you, miss?” the young woman asked. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, and her red hair was twisted in the most beautiful array of French braids that Clarke had ever seen.

“Italian Roast, please. In the largest size you’ve got.” The girl—Monroe, her nametag read—chuckled at the defeat in Clarke’s tone before spinning around to make her order. A steaming cup of black coffee was shoved into her hand within seconds, and Clarke nearly moaned at the aroma.

“We’ve got sugar and cream over there,” Monroe added, pointing out to the other side of the café. “Just grab as much as you need.”

“Thank you so much,” Clarke groaned out as she followed the direction of Monroe’s finger to the kiosk of sugary goodness near the entrance of the café. Clarke had almost reached it, too, when she took notice of where exactly the kiosk was situated. Or rather, _who_ it was situated next to.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Clarke growled. Sitting less than two foot away from the pile of coveted sugar packets was none other than the asshole from the window.

Seriously? What had she done to deserve this much bad luck in a single day?

Clarke ducked her head down, practically jogging to the kiosk in the hopes of getting out of that cursed coffee shop as soon as possible. When she’d finally gotten her hands on some milk and sugar, however, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing at him from the corner of her eye.

He looked to be about her age, probably just a little bit older. His black hair fell over his forehead in messy waves as he bent over the table to read the newspaper clenched in his large hands. His whole body looked warm and bronzed, as if someone had pressed the heat of summer into his skin. Freckles dusted his cheeks like a sprinkle of brown sugar, and his dark blue t-shirt stretched tightly over a well defined back. His eyes, the ones that had laughed at her only minutes before, were darker than the coffee in her hand, and they gleamed with intensity as he scanned the article stretched out in front of him.

Clarke got a hold of her wandering eyes and went back to stirring her coffee.

So he was hot. Whatever. He was still a dick for laughing at her.

“You missed a spot.” Clarke jumped, whipping her head around. Her wide eyes met his for the third time that day, and she noticed that they were mocking her once again, bright with amusement.

“What?” Clarke responded. _Missed what? What spot?_

The jerk with the bold eyes simply lifted his eyebrow, responding with a tap to his cheek.

“Paint,” he clarified, placing his hand back on the table. His fingers were long, with blunt nails and a patch of freckles across his knuckles. “There’s still a spot left.”

Of course there was. _I’m so done with this shit._ With a sigh, Clarke scanned the area for a reflective surface. Swiping a metal napkin dispenser off of the nearest table, Clarke held it out in front of her and tilted her head.

He was right. There was a spot, right at the top of her cheek. With a furious growl, Clarke glared at her distorted reflection.

She heard the guy let out a small laugh, and it was a lot deeper and throatier than she had expected. When she met his eyes again, they were brighter than before, and he was almost… smiling at her.

Not so judgmental after all. Huh.

“Maybe you should invest in a mirror.” He joked, and some of the tension in Clarke’s shoulders eased up when his smile grew into a grin. It had been a while since she had taken part in light-hearted conversation, and she found that it did wonders for her pounding headache.

Clarke scoffed, rolling her eyes and responding to the semi-decent guy with a smile of her own.

“Sounds like a waste of money to me,” she teased, setting the napkin dispenser back down and grabbing her almost forgotten coffee.

“Right. Why use a mirror when there are two way windows everywhere?” He deadpanned. Clarke had to laugh at that, shrugging when he quirked his eyebrow up at her. He had wide lips, and they curled all the way up his cheeks when he chuckled.

Shaking her head, Clarke took a quick sip of her drink before taking a few steps backwards. _I’m just here for a quick stop and go. Right._

She looked back at him one last time, tracing the mop of curls around his forehead before meeting his gaze.

“Bye,” she said with a nod.

“Later, Princess,” he called out as she pushed open the glass door.

It wasn’t until later, when she had chugged down all her coffee and jammed her keys into her apartment door, that she wondered why the cute guy from the coffee shop had bothered giving a nickname to someone he would probably never meet again.

* * *

 

Clarke Griffin.

Bellamy recognized her from the paper. Someone had written an article about her; about how she had run away from her doctor mom and her upper class privileged life to open up an art studio. Apparently, the struggling artist shtick didn’t last long. The critics thought she was amazing, and she was slowly but surely reeling in clients.

The newspaper had a headshot of her right next to the article. Her hair was pinned back, her jaw was set, and nothing but the thinnest of smiles curled her lips. She looked determined, yes, but she also looked uppity and altruistic, and Bellamy had deemed her no different from the rest of those high society moneybags.

But then she’d stopped in front of the coffee shop he was a regular at and stuck her tongue out at him, and Bellamy knew that he might have pegged her completely wrong.

He didn’t recognize her at first. I mean, who would? She was a mess, and her clothes were impossibly messy. But as soon as they made eye contact, Bellamy knew.

He remembered those eyes from her picture.

They were startling, pale like ice water, and Bellamy would have legitimately thought they were made from glass if it weren’t for the embers that burned behind them.

Embers that now glowed with a brilliant blue flame as she marched into the coffee shop while he laughed at her bad luck.

What? It was funny. Sue him for having a sense of humor.

Bellamy’s serial dating days of the past were long gone—what with a teenage sister he was now a legal guardian of and grad school courses at the nearby university—but his eyes followed Clarke around the shop all the same.

She was pretty under all that paint, he knew. Or maybe she was pretty with the paint on? Bellamy didn’t really know, he just knew that she wasn’t at all unappealing. Her hair almost seemed to radiate its own shine, and she had a little freckle at the top of her lip that reminded him of Marilyn Monroe.

Bellamy stopped himself from going down that path and turned back to his paper. He did not need to be thinking about girls when he had a million other things to worry about.

Turns out, those million other things could wait, because he spoke to her anyways. She was funny, and her smile was warm whenever she laughed. He had no idea where the whole “Princess” thing had come from, but he was kind of proud of the nickname. It suited her.

As she pushed through the glass door on his way out, Bellamy grinned to himself.

Clarke Griffin. Who would’ve thought?


End file.
